The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[french frank]

I think there's also the question of 'What you've never had you never miss.' Just because new listeners - of any age - are coaxed over to R3 to listen to Breakfast or Essential Classics (two programmes ostensibly tailored specially for them) doesn't mean they couldn't cope with and enjoy programmes which are more music-focused, with all the trivalities stripped out.

There isn't any evidence that they all tuned in to Morning on 3 and found it 'inaccessible' and are now flooding back with relief having found the new programmes more on their level. It isn't that Morning on 3 was terribly demanding. It had news headlines every half hour (so no very long pieces), didn't have single movements, didn't have emailing/texting/tweeting/phoning in, non-musical topics up for pseudo-'discussion', snippets of this, that and the other. But it was geared for morning listening.

People who didn't listen to it aren't in any position to compare it with Breakfast and find it wanting.

[antongould]

My point is, and yes I do repeat myself, we have had 2(?) generations since the 70s the yoof of today are different from then as is each age band and they really wouldn't IMHO be attracted by Morning on 3. I'm not saying they are right or to be applauded just, probably sadly, that's the way it is.
If R3 doesn't retain an audience the Bullingdon Boys will chop it without a second thought and with it all the orchestras and maybe even, if times get very hard, the Proms which would become the HSBC Proms. Maybe a wildly incorrect viewpoint but my own!

[french frank]

My point is, and yes I do repeat myself, we have had 2(?) generations since the 70s the yoof of today are different from then as is each age band and they really wouldn't IMHO be attracted by Morning on 3. I'm not saying they are right or to be applauded just, probably sadly, that's the way it is.

I'm not convinced that the yoof of today are attracted by Breakfast either. They certainly aren't the new target audience.

In general, yoof have never been attracted to R3 (that doesn't mean no young people have been, just only an exceptionally small number; and they were attracted back in the 60s and 70s before the morning programme became a drivetime format). I was in my forties when I started listening, as a 'new listener', and certainly wouldn't have been attracted to Breakfast. Trivial tat, I would have thought. One rung up from chatty local radio. But I would have been closer to being the current target audience than today's yoof. It isn't necessary to try to attract 'yoof' specially, if by that you mean teens 'n' twenties. And if you targeted them, you wouldn't be catering for the older 'new' listener.

[french frank]

If R3 doesn't retain an audience the Bullingdon Boys will chop it without a second thought and with it all the orchestras ... Maybe a wildly incorrect viewpoint but my own!

And my viewpoint is that they are going just the right way to drive their audience away. And are succeeding.

[antongould]

We 2 have been here before..........your view carries much more support here than mine and so I shall revert to silence. At least we both hope that, by whatever means, R3 survives in a form we both recognise.

[doversoul1]

My point is, and yes I do repeat myself, we have had 2(?) generations since the 70s the yoof of today are different from then as is each age band and they really wouldn't IMHO be attracted by Morning on 3. I'm not saying they are right or to be applauded just, probably sadly, that's the way it is.
If R3 doesn't retain an audience the Bullingdon Boys will chop it without a second thought and with it all the orchestras and maybe even, if times get very hard, the Proms which would become the HSBC Proms. Maybe a wildly incorrect viewpoint but my own!

I think we’ve been here many a time. Radio3 DID have an audience and it probably still has, even just. What R3 is doing is abandoning the audience it had and chasing somebody else’s audience for which it is not equipped.

You might say ‘but the audience Radio3 now had is going to age and die away’. No, I am absolutely sure that there are plenty of not quite 58-year olds out there who are looking forward to the days when they can have time to themselves and listen to the music they like to their heart’s content. Other youths are not Radio3’s concern, today’s or tomorrow’s, unless they want to learn.

Why are you so concerned about youth? Radio3’s role is not to educate young people in general but to cater for those who have interest (note: not knowledge) in classical music.

[french frank]

We 2 have been here before..........your view carries much more support here than mine and so I shall revert to silence. At least we both hope that, by whatever means, R3 survives in a form we both recognise.

An act of altruism on my part. I can't see that I will ever become a Radio 3 listener again because it isn't surviving in a form I recognise. It's slowly sinking and isn't even doing it bravely.

[antongould]

Sorry doversoul I was probably too fascinated by sc "joining" at 12 i.e. sort of pre yoof........

[mercia]

when an overture is played without the rest of the opera, is that considered a "bleeding chunk"?

It's interesting looking at the Proms archive that regular performances of the complete Planets Suite didn't start until the 1950's. In the previous thirty years only excerpts were played.

[salymap]

when an overture is played without the rest of the opera, is that considered a "bleeding chunk"?

Certainly not by me. One of the best ways of becoming familiar with music from the opera; satisfying in itself. I was constantly reminding Rob of seldom heard overtures when he asked for suggestions. Not email or text, he just asked on the old boards without all the flummery.

[mercia]

satisfying in itself

indeed, so why is the playing of a single movement from a symphony considered so bad ........... I wonder

[salymap]

indeed, so why is the playing of a single movement from a symphony considered so bad ........... I wonder

Because the overture comes to a 'full stop', no-one wants or expects the whole opera on Breakfast. If you have little technical knowledge of music like me, BUT a good musical memory, a single movement is a form of 'musicus interuptus' to coin and mangle a phrase.

[mercia]

yes I hear and understand what you're saying salymap, but if someone hadn't heard a particular symphony (or whatever) and didn't have that musical memory, couldn't a single movement be a "satisfying-in-itself" entity ................ just a thought

[antongould]

that is someone like me and I suspect a fair number of other listeners looking to expand thir musical horizons.

[kernelbogey]

[...] a single movement is a form of 'musicus interuptus[...]

What a very good metaphor, Sal!